DOCSLIB.ORG

Lebanese Reconciliation Through Youth Graffiti Art

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Lebanese Reconciliation Through Youth Graffiti Art Murals for Hope: Lebanese Reconciliation through Youth Graffiti Art By © 2017 Katelyn M. Bronell B.A, Marquette University, 2015 Submitted to the graduate degree program in Global and International Studies and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Chair: Marike Janzen Erik R. Scott F. Michael Wuthrich Date Defended: 30 November 2017 ii The thesis committee for Katelyn M. Bronell certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Murals for Hope: Lebanese Reconciliation through Youth Graffiti Art Chair: Marike Janzen Date Approved: 13 December 2017 iii Abstract Lebanese history contains both violence and sectarian tension which permeates Lebanese society and hinders reconciliation for the many ethnic groups in the country. Although the older generation lives with the memories of the civil war, the younger generation has instead developed memories of the war with perspectives that normalize both the social tension and lingering past stories. However, these negative perspectives are transmuted as the younger Lebanese generation reflects their hopes and dreams of the world through the public domain using graffiti as a medium. Although criminalized globally in the past, graffiti art has the potential to repaint walls of society with opinions and art, especially in the Middle East. This textual analysis paper examines the graffiti artwork of five young Lebanese artists, who did not experience the civil war, but grew up in its aftermath and whose perspective add the religious and social aspects needed to authenticate a reconciliation narrative. Using theoretical discussion of both reconciliation and of Ricœur’s hermeneutic phenomenology one can interpret the Lebanese narratives of reconciliation through the images of acknowledgment and acceptance of a collective past, the image of reparation of destroyed relationships through similar cultural symbols, and a commitment to a future of coexistence and peace. Keywords: Reconciliation, Textual Analysis, Graffiti, Arab Youth, Lebanon, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Ricoeur, Narratives iv Acknowledgments I would first like to thank my thesis advisors, Associate Professor Jacquelene Brinton of Religious Studies and Assistant Professor Marike Janzen of Humanities of the University of Kansas. Both of whom were more than willing to assist me throughout the development of my thesis. I would also like to thank the two committee members Associate Professor Erik R. Scott of History and Assistant Professor F. Michael Wuthrich of Political at the University of Kansas. I would like to thank my family: my mother who was my editor and my father who was my motivator. I want to thank my sister, Bee, who was my comedic relief and my close friends who always supported me no matter the distance. Thank you to Stephanie Neal, Cari Weber, and 1SGT Bruce Andrews. v Table of Contents Murals for Hope: ......................................................................................................................................... i Lebanese Reconciliation through Youth Graffiti Art ............................................................................... i Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................................ v Table of Figures ......................................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 1 Background ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Literature Review ....................................................................................................................................... 9 Reconciliation .......................................................................................................................................... 9 Identity ................................................................................................................................................... 14 Narratives .............................................................................................................................................. 17 Youth ...................................................................................................................................................... 21 Graffiti ................................................................................................................................................... 24 Theory: Hermeneutic Phenomenology ................................................................................................... 27 Data and Methods ..................................................................................................................................... 30 Lebanese Graffiti Artists ...................................................................................................................... 33 Analysis ...................................................................................................................................................... 35 Acknowledgement and Acceptance of a Collective Past .................................................................... 35 Reparation of Destroyed Relationships Through Similar Cultural Symbols .................................. 42 Commitment to a Future of Coexistence, Peace, and Nationalism ................................................... 49 Discussion .................................................................................................................................................. 52 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 59 Citations ..................................................................................................................................................... 62 vi Table of Figures Image 1: Christian Snipers left behind a cross and a Lebanese Forces Militia Symbols ............... 7 Image 2: Palestinian Wall covered in graffiti art [Gaza Strip/West Bank, Israel/Palestine] .......... 8 Image 3: Egyptian Revolution Graffiti Art [Cairo, Egypt] ............................................................. 8 Image 4: "Neither Dead Nor Alive " Yazan Halwani [Beirut, Leb.] ............................................ 36 Image 5: "The Rich Eat the Poor." Karim Tamerji Collaboration [Beirut, Leb.] ........................ 38 Image 6: "Human Cat" Ali Rafei [Hamra, Beirut, Leb] ............................................................... 39 Image 7: "Police Brutality" Ali Rafei [Beirut, Leb.] .................................................................... 41 Image 8: "I Faced Death and Rose from the Ashes " Hayat Chaaban [Tripoli, Leb.] .................. 41 Image 9: "1st Fairuz Mural" Yazan Halwani [Beirut, Leb.] ......................................................... 42 Image 10: "Ali Abdullah " Yazan Halwani [Hamra, Beirut, Leb.] ............................................... 43 Image 11: Vandalized "Ali Abdallah" [Hamra, Beirut, Leb.] ...................................................... 44 Image 12: "Grendizer - 'People's Champ'" Ashekman [Beirut, Leb.] ........................................... 45 Image 13: "To Be Free or Not to Be" Ashekman [Beirut, Leb.] ................................................. 46 Image 14: "Said Akl" Phat2 [Beirut, Leb.]……………………………………………………....53 Image 15: "Salam - Peace" Hayat Chaaban [Tripoli, Leb.] .......................................................... 49 Image 16: "I Love Corruption" Ali Rafei [Beirut,Leb] ................................................................ 50 Image 17: "Always be Positive" Ashekman [Beirut, Leb.] .......................................................... 51 Image 18: “The Inevitability of Leaving Things Behind” Yazan Halwani [Mannheim, Germany] ........ 55 Image 19: “Ouzai Neighborhood” Ashekman [Ouzai, Beirut, Leb.] ............................................ 56 1 Introduction Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. -Banksy (2005) Artists have a incredibly powerful role in society by being responsible for breaking down the mundane, typical social structures that frame human life and then spraying their personal, if not often ambiguous messages on its very walls. Simply put an artist’s role is to make the invisible visible. In “Art as Technique”, Viktor Shklovsky’s notes that art exists so that people can recover the sensation of life and to make people feel things (1917). In the case of this paper, the art form currently making the invisible visible is graffiti. Due to graffiti’s association with destruction and vandalism of public property rather than its transformation into forms of high culture its messages are often misconstrued, even just misplaced. Nonetheless, graffiti artists, like Banksy, an anonymous graffiti artist
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Syria: "Torture Was My Punishment": Abductions, Torture and Summary
    ‘TORTURE WAS MY PUNISHMENT’ ABDUCTIONS, TORTURE AND SUMMARY KILLINGS UNDER ARMED GROUP RULE IN ALEPPO AND IDLEB, SYRIA Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 7 million people who campaign for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all. Our vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion and are funded mainly by our membership and public donations. © Amnesty International 2016 Cover photo: Armed group fighters prepare to launch a rocket in the Saif al-Dawla district of the Except where otherwise noted, content in this document is licensed under a Creative Commons northern Syrian city of Aleppo, on 21 April 2013. (attribution, non-commercial, no derivatives, international 4.0) licence. © Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode For more information please visit the permissions page on our website: www.amnesty.org Where material is attributed to a copyright owner other than Amnesty International this material is not subject to the Creative Commons licence. First published in 2016 by Amnesty International Ltd Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW, UK Index: MDE 24/4227/2016 July 2016 Original language: English amnesty.org CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 METHODOLOGY 7 1. BACKGROUND 9 1.1 Armed group rule in Aleppo and Idleb 9 1.2 Violations by other actors 13 2. ABDUCTIONS 15 2.1 Journalists and media activists 15 2.2 Lawyers, political activists and others 18 2.3 Children 21 2.4 Minorities 22 3.
    [Show full text]
  • US Foreign Policy and the Multinational Force in Lebanon, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53973-7 256 BIBLIOGRAPHY
    BIBLIOGRAPHY PRIMARY SOURCE ARCHIVES Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library. Abilene James Earl Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta United Nations Archives and Record Management, New York City The British National Archives, Kew Central Intelligence Agency Freedom of Information Archives, Online Department of State Freedom of Information ‘Released Documents’ Archive, Online PUBLISHED INTERVIEWS Interview with Fawaaz Traboulsi by Lynn Barbee, Published in MERIP Reports, No.61, October 1970, pp.3–5. Interview with Shaykh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah by Mahmoud Soueid, Published in Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol.25, No.1, 1995. Interview with Yusif al-Haytham, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Published in MERIP Reports, No. 44 February 1976. Speech given by Fawwaz Traboulsi and Assaf Kfoury ‘Lebanon on the Brink’ Lebanese American University, 18 January 2007. Interview with Prince Farid Chehab, Former Director of Public Security, Centre for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, American University of Beirut, 2007. © The Author(s) 2017 255 C. Varady, US Foreign Policy and the Multinational Force in Lebanon, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53973-7 256 BIBLIOGRAPHY Interview with Adel Osseiran, President of the Council of Representatives, Lebanon, Centre for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, American University of Beirut, 2007. Interview with Said Akl, Lebanese Writer and Political Poet, Centre for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, American University of Beirut, 2007. Interview with Anbara Salam al Khalidi, Conducted by Laila Rostom, Centre for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, American University of Beirut, 2007. Interview with Raymond Edde, Former Lebanese Presidential Candidate and Former State Ministers, Jan 25 1970, Centre for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, American University of Beirut, 2007.
    [Show full text]
  • Song, State, Sawa Music and Political Radio Between the US and Syria
    Song, State, Sawa Music and Political Radio between the US and Syria Beau Bothwell Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 Beau Bothwell All rights reserved ABSTRACT Song, State, Sawa: Music and Political Radio between the US and Syria Beau Bothwell This dissertation is a study of popular music and state-controlled radio broadcasting in the Arabic-speaking world, focusing on Syria and the Syrian radioscape, and a set of American stations named Radio Sawa. I examine American and Syrian politically directed broadcasts as multi-faceted objects around which broadcasters and listeners often differ not only in goals, operating assumptions, and political beliefs, but also in how they fundamentally conceptualize the practice of listening to the radio. Beginning with the history of international broadcasting in the Middle East, I analyze the institutional theories under which music is employed as a tool of American and Syrian policy, the imagined youths to whom the musical messages are addressed, and the actual sonic content tasked with political persuasion. At the reception side of the broadcaster-listener interaction, this dissertation addresses the auditory practices, histories of radio, and theories of music through which listeners in the sonic environment of Damascus, Syria create locally relevant meaning out of music and radio. Drawing on theories of listening and communication developed in historical musicology and ethnomusicology, science and technology studies, and recent transnational ethnographic and media studies, as well as on theories of listening developed in the Arabic public discourse about popular music, my dissertation outlines the intersection of the hypothetical listeners defined by the US and Syrian governments in their efforts to use music for political ends, and the actual people who turn on the radio to hear the music.
    [Show full text]
  • Jeanmichel Basquiat: an Analysis of Nine Paintings
    Jean­Michel Basquiat: An Analysis of Nine Paintings By Michael Dragovic This paper was written for History 397: History, Memory, Representation. The course was taught by Professor Akiko Takenaka in Winter 2009. Jean‐Michel Basquiat’s incendiary career and rise to fame during the 1980s was unprecedented in the world of art. Even more exceptional, he is the only black painter to have achieved such mystic celebrity status. The former graffiti sprayer whose art is inextricable from the backdrop of New York City streets penetrated the global art scene with unparalleled quickness. His work arrested the attention of big‐ shot art dealers such as Bruno Bischofberger, Mary Boone, and Anina Nosei, while captivating a vast audience ranging from vagabonds to high society. His paintings are often compared to primitive tribal drawings and to kindergarten scribbles, but these comparisons are meant to underscore the works’ raw innocence and tone of authenticity akin to the primitivism of Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Cy Twombly or, perhaps, even that of the infant mind. Be that as it may, there is nothing juvenile about the communicative power of Basquiat’s work. His paintings depict the physical and the abstract to express themes as varied as drug abuse, bigotry, jazz, capitalism, and mortality. What seem to be the most pervasive throughout his paintings are themes of racial and socioeconomic inequality and the degradation of life that accompanies this. After examining several key paintings from Basquiat’s brief but illustrious career, the emphasis on specific visual and textual imagery within and among these paintings coalesces as a marked—and often scathing— social commentary.
    [Show full text]
  • Farah Al Qasimi (B
    Gallery Guide Farah Al Qasimi (b. 1991, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Artist’s Suggested Reading and Listening List Contemporary Art Emirates; lives and works in Brooklyn and Dubai) works Museum St. Louis in photography, video, and performance. Her recent Selected by Farah Al Qasimi to share insights into her commission with Public Art Fund, Back and Forth Disco, art and ideas. September 3, 2021– was on view at 100 bus shelters in New York City in February 13, 2022 2019–20, and was named one of the best artworks of Reading: the year by The New Yorker. Her work has been featured / The Arab Apocalypse, Etel Adnan, (poetry), The Post-Apollo Press, in exhibitions at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai; San 2007 Francisco Arts Commission; CCS Bard Galleries at the / Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, Farah Al Qasimi Hessel Museum of Art, New York; Helena Anrather, New and the Duty of Repair, Sarah Schulman, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016 York; The Third Line, Dubai; The List Visual Arts Center / Diving Into The Wreck: Poems 1971-1972, Adrienne Rich, W.W. Everywhere there is splendor at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Museum of Norton and Company, 1994 (reissue, paperback) Contemporary Art, Toronto; and the Houston Center for / “Eating the other: Desire and resistance,” in Black Looks: Race and Photography. She has participated in residencies at / Representation, bell hooks, South End Press, 1992 the Delfina Foundation, London; Skowhegan School of The Girl Who Fell to Earth: A Memoir, Sophia Al-Maria, Harper Painting and Sculpture, Maine; and is a recipient of the Perennial, 2012 New York NADA Artadia Prize; Aaron Siskind Individual / LaToya Ruby Frazier: The Notion of Family, Dawoud Bey, interview; Photographer’s Fellowship; and this year’s Capricious Laura Wexler and Dennis C.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Sounds, Private Spaces: Towards a Fairouz Museum in Zokak El­Blat
    OIS 3 (2015) ± Divercities: Competing Narratives and Urban Practices in Beirut, Cairo and Tehran Mazen Haidar and Akram Rayess Public Sounds, Private Spaces: Towards a Fairouz Museum in Zokak el-Blat Figure 1: Young Nouhad Haddad (Fairouz) to the right, with one of the neighbours, on the staircase of her family©s house in Zokak el Blat in the late 1940s. Source: Fairouz 1981 USA Tour catalogue. <1> The idea of dedicating a museum to Fairouz, the famous singer and doyenne of musical theatre in Lebanon, at her childhood home in Beirut has circulated in the local media for several years.1 The persistent media 1 A variety of articles and television reports from Lebanese and Arab newspapers and TV stations from 2009 to 2015 have covered the issue of the "Fairouz Museum" in Beirut, in parallel to studies and research conducted by institutions and civil society associations such as MAJAL ± see for instance MAJAL Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts, Urban Conservation in Zokak el-Blat (Université de Balamand, 2012) ± and Save Beirut Heritage. Among these we mention the following media resources: Chirine Lahoud, "The House where a Star was Born", Daily Star, Beirut, 18 June 2013; Haifa Lizenzhinweis: Dieser Beitrag unterliegt der Creative-Commons-Lizenz Namensnennung-Keine kommerzielle Nutzung-Keine Bearbeitung (CC-BY-NC-ND), darf also unter diesen Bedingungen elektronisch benutzt, übermittelt, ausgedruckt und zum Download bereitgestellt werden. Den Text der Lizenz erreichen Sie hier: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/de campaign, initiated by a number of associations and activists calling for the preservation of plots 565 and 567, the cadastral numbers of the two properties on which Fairouz©s childhood home was located, came to fruition when the endangered nineteenth-century mansion in the Zokak el-Blat district was declared a building of public interest.2 <2> This paper discusses Fairouz©s house as part of a contested urban space, and the multiple readings and interpretations of Beirut©s architectural heritage that have arisen in this contentious context.
    [Show full text]
  • Terrorism, Diasporas, and Permissive Threat Environments: a Study Of
    NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS TERRORISM, DIASPORAS, AND PERMISSIVE THREAT ENVIRONMENTS. A STUDY OF HIZBALLAH’S FUNDRAISING OPERATIONS IN PARAGUAY AND ECUADOR. by Howard Vincent Meehan December 2004 Thesis Advisor: Jeanne Giraldo Thesis Advisor: Harold Trinkunas Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE Form Approved OMB No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instruction, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington, VA 22202-4302, and to the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project (0704-0188) Washington DC 20503. 1. AGENCY USE ONLY (Leave blank) 2. REPORT DATE 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED December 2004 Master’s Thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE: Terrorism, Diasporas, and Permissive Threat 5. FUNDING NUMBERS Environments. A Study of Hizballah’s Fundraising Operations in Paraguay and Ecuador. 6. AUTHOR(S) Howard Vincent Meehan 7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8. PERFORMING Naval Postgraduate School ORGANIZATION REPORT Monterey, CA 93943-5000 NUMBER 9. SPONSORING /MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSORING/MONITORING N/A AGENCY REPORT NUMBER 11. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES The views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Working Paper 2006/29
    EUI WORKING PAPERS RSCAS No. 2006/29 Lebanese Politics of Nationality and Emigration Thibaut Jaulin EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Mediterranean Programme Series jaulin cov.indd 1 19/09/2006 12:02:40 EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE, FLORENCE ROBERT SCHUMAN CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES Lebanese Politics of Nationality and Emigration THIBAUT JAULIN EUI Working Paper RSCAS No. 2006/29 BADIA FIESOLANA, SAN DOMENICO DI FIESOLE (FI) © 2006 Thibaut Jaulin This text may be downloaded only for personal research purposes. Any additional reproduction for such purposes, whether in hard copies or electronically, require the consent of the author. Requests should be addressed directly to the author. See contact details at end of text. If cited or quoted, reference should be made to the full name of the author, the title, the working paper, or other series, the year and the publisher. Any reproductions for other purposes require the consent of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. The author should inform the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the EUI if the paper will be published elsewhere and also take responsibility for any consequential obligation(s). ISSN 1028-3625 Printed in Italy in September 2006 European University Institute Badia Fiesolana I – 50016 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) Italy http://www.iue.it/RSCAS/Publications/ http://cadmus.iue.it/dspace/index.jsp Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies carries out disciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the areas of European integration and public policy in Europe. It hosts the annual European Forum.
    [Show full text]
  • Militia Politics
    INTRODUCTION Humboldt – Universität zu Berlin Dissertation MILITIA POLITICS THE FORMATION AND ORGANISATION OF IRREGULAR ARMED FORCES IN SUDAN (1985-2001) AND LEBANON (1975-1991) Zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades doctor philosophiae (Dr. phil) Philosophische Fakultät III der Humbold – Universität zu Berlin (M.A. B.A.) Jago Salmon; 9 Juli 1978; Canberra, Australia Dekan: Prof. Dr. Gert-Joachim Glaeßner Gutachter: 1. Dr. Klaus Schlichte 2. Prof. Joel Migdal Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 18.07.2006 INTRODUCTION You have to know that there are two kinds of captain praised. One is those who have done great things with an army ordered by its own natural discipline, as were the greater part of Roman citizens and others who have guided armies. These have had no other trouble than to keep them good and see to guiding them securely. The other is those who not only have had to overcome the enemy, but, before they arrive at that, have been necessitated to make their army good and well ordered. These without doubt merit much more praise… Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War (2003, 161) INTRODUCTION Abstract This thesis provides an analysis of the organizational politics of state supporting armed groups, and demonstrates how group cohesion and institutionalization impact on the patterns of violence witnessed within civil wars. Using an historical comparative method, strategies of leadership control are examined in the processes of organizational evolution of the Popular Defence Forces, an Islamist Nationalist militia, and the allied Lebanese Forces, a Christian Nationalist militia. The first group was a centrally coordinated network of irregular forces which fielded ill-disciplined and semi-autonomous military units, and was responsible for severe war crimes.
    [Show full text]
  • Botschafterin Der Sterne | Norient.Com 5 Oct 2021 13:19:41
    Botschafterin der Sterne | norient.com 5 Oct 2021 13:19:41 Botschafterin der Sterne by Thomas Burkhalter Die libanesische Sängerin Fairuz ist die Ikone des libanesischen Liedes. Mit ihren Komponisten, den Gebrüdern Rahbani, hat sie der libanesischen Musik und Kultur eine starke Identität gegeben. Die Sängerin Fairuz und ihre Komponisten Assy und Mansour Rahbani gelten im Libanon als nationale, kulturelle und politische Symbole. Ab den 50er Jahren verpasste das Trio der libanesischen Musik eine starke Identität und vermochte sich von der vorherrschenden Kulturszene Ägypten abzutrennen. Heute jedoch, elf Jahre nach dem Bürgerkrieg, kämpft die Musikszene Libanon etwas orientierungslos gegen eine wirtschaftliche Misere an. Ein Gespräch mit dem 2009 verstorbenen Mansour Rahbani. https://norient.com/podcasts/fairuz Page 1 of 8 Botschafterin der Sterne | norient.com 5 Oct 2021 13:19:41 Diese Sendung wurde ausgestrahlt am 25.1.2002 in der Sendung Musik der Welt auf Schweizer Radio DRS2. Hintergrundinfos zu Fairuz Rezension eines wunderbaren Fairuz-Buches von Ines Weinrich. Von Thomas Burkhalter. Ines Weinrich, Fayruz und die Rahbani Brüder – Musik, Moderne und Nation im Libanon. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2006. Fayruz is much more than just a Lebanese singer; her name stands for a concept with musical, poetical and political connotations: This is the leitmotiv in Ines Weinrichs book on Fayruz, the Diva of Lebanese singing, and her composers Asi and Mansour Rahbani. Through the analysis of their work, the book «Fayruz und die Brüder Rahbani – Musik, Moderne und Nation im Libanon» tracks down significant processes in the history of Lebanon since its formal independence in 1943. It reveals a nation that is continuously searching for its identity and position in the regional and global setting.
    [Show full text]
  • Awardee: Emily Nasrallah Writer, Lebanon
    Awardee: Emily Nasrallah Writer, Lebanon Emily Nasrallah is one of the most well-known writers in the Arab world. In her works written for adults and children, she has found a poetic language to describe everyday life in war-torn Lebanon. In this way, she has contributed over the years to reconciliation between the different populations in Lebanon. Besides war, her main themes are the life of village women and migration. Her first novel, Birds of September (1962), is not only read regularly in Lebanon’s schools today, but is also considered a classic of Arabic literature. Born in 1931, Emily Nasrallah grew up in a Christian family in a village in southern Lebanon. After studying education at the American University in Beirut, she worked as a teacher, then as a journalist and freelance writer. In 1962, her debut novel, Touyour Ayloul (Birds of September), was published and went on to receive three Arabic literary awards. In addition to novels, essays and short stories for adults, Nasrallah has also published seven children’s books. Her writings’ mainly focus on village life in Lebanon, women’s emancipation efforts, identity issues in the Lebanese civil war and migration. Many of her books have been translated into other languages, including English, Spanish, Dutch, Finnish, Thai and German. Although her home and possessions were destroyed in various bomb attacks during the Lebanese civil war, Nasrallah refused to go into exile. Together with a group of female writers, described as the “Beirut Decentrists”, the mother of four remained in Beirut, where she still lives today.
    [Show full text]
  • Women in Sha'bi Music: Globalization, Mass Media and Popular Music in the Arab World
    WOMEN IN SHA'BI MUSIC: GLOBALIZATION, MASS MEDIA AND POPULAR MUSIC IN THE ARAB WORLD DANA F. ACEE A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC December 2011 Committee: David Harnish, Advisor Kara Attrep © 2011 Dana F. Acee All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT David Harnish, Advisor This thesis focuses on sha’bi music, a style of popular music in the Arab world. More specifically, it discusses the role of women in sha’bi music, focusing on singers Nancy Ajram and Haifa Wehbe as examples of female pop singers. I take a feminist approach to understanding the lives, images, and legacies of two of the most influential female singers of the twentieth century, Umm Kulthum and Fairouz, and then I explore how these legacies have impacted the careers and societal expectations of Ajram and Wehbe. Several issues are explicated in the thesis, including the historic progression of popular music, the impacts of globalization and westernization, and the status of women as performers in the Arab world. The fan bases of the various female sha’bi singers are explored to examine why people are drawn to popular music, how youth cultures utilize music to define their generations, and why some people in the Arab world have problems with this music and/or with the singers: their lyrics, clothing, dancing bodies, and music videos. My ethnography on these issues among Arabs in Bowling Green, Ohio, reveals how members of the diaspora address the tensions of this music and the images of female performers.
    [Show full text]